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How does Smoking Cause Cancer?

When a tobacco cigarette burns, it releases a cocktail of about 4000 chemicals, more than 70 of them are cancer causing substances.

Scientists have shown that these chemicals can damage a person’s DNA and therefore change the genes, hence causing cancer by the cells growing abnormally and multiplying out of control.

Among these carcinogenic substances are:

Tar – a sticky brown residue, which smokers inhale every time the smoke; tar also forms stains on a smoker’s teeth, fingers and lungs

Arsenic, which is used in wood preservatives

Benzene, an industrial solvent, refined from crude oil

Cadmium, used in batteries

Formaldehyde, used in mortuaries and paint manufacturing

Polonium-210, a highly radioactive element

Chromium, used to manufacture dye, paints and alloys

1,3-Butadiene, used in rubber manufacturing

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a group of dangerous DNA-damaging chemicals

Nitrosamines, another group of DNA-damaging chemicals

Acrolein, formerly used as a chemical weapon

Metals, such as nickel, lead, cobalt and beryllium. These metals are easily absorbed by the lungs when smoked.

There are many more chemicals, that don’t directly cause cancer, but they make it easier for others to do so. Nicotine is not a carcinogenic, however it is a highly addictive drug, which causes a person to want to smoke more and regularly, increasing the chances of getting cancer from inhaling harmful carcinogenic chemicals contained in the cigarette.